Exporting more than 10,000 rows from Activity explorer in Purview

Question

HI - I've used the query below to pull the export, but it is limited to very few columns. Is there any possibility to pull out all columns or selected columns from purview to this export?

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/answers/questions/2261744/export-activityexplorerdata-command-using-pagecook

Also, i'd like to make use of this export and transfer it into Power BI to create metrics. Are there any best recommendations on how can we pull live data from purview to power BI? Thanks.

Answer 1

Hi @Niharika Ch You're absolutely right while the Export-ActivityExplorerData cmdlet helps bypass the UI limit, it currently does not export all the columns you see in the Activity Explorer portal. The exported data comes in a predefined schema, which means there's no direct option in the cmdlet to customize or pull all columns individually.

That said, some extra fields (especially things like device info, application context, etc.) might still be embedded under nested properties like AdditionalProperties in the JSON export. If you're comfortable exploring the structure a bit, you can run this in PowerShell after exporting to inspect what's available:

($res.ResultData | ConvertFrom-Json)[0] | Get-Member

This will list all the fields present in the JSON object and you can extract what you need from there. But just to confirm, the cmdlet does not support specifying individual columns at this time.

Here’s the official Microsoft doc: Export-ActivityExplorerData PowerShell Reference

Regarding Power BI Integration: If you're planning to use this data in Power BI to create dashboards or metrics, here are a few approaches that can work depending on how dynamic you want the setup to be:

1: Manual Import

• Use the .csv or .json file generated from PowerShell and import it into Power BI using Get Data > Text/CSV.
• You can use Power Query to clean, shape, and transform the data before visualizing.

2: Refresh with OneDrive or SharePoint

• Save the exported file to OneDrive or SharePoint and connect Power BI to that file.
• This lets you set up a scheduled refresh, which keeps the data relatively current without manual uploads.

3: Semi-Live Setup with Azure

• Push your exported data into Azure SQL Database or Azure Blob Storage.
• Power BI can connect directly to those sources — giving you more control and near real-time refresh cycles if set up properly.

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